This is more of an fyi than an answer to anything. During the Vietnam
War, Richard Piick developed a system for the Marine Corp to manage the
helicopter spare parts inventory. It combine an os, a database, query
language and report writer. In the early 80's t was released for the
8086 pc (ibm AT). It required only 640 k memory an 20 mb hd and
supported up to 16 users on serial terminals. It was multi-user but
single-tasking.
It was used for many business applications and became the goto system
for early healthcare systems in the UK and Australia. I used it to build
a medical charting system for doctors and added a billing module. I
demoed on a compaq portable III with a 5-1/4 " floppy, 20 meg hd and 4
accessory serial ports.
It was anything but "open source". It was later ported to various linux
platforms It is still on the market and many users. I don't thing they
offer any version for bare-metal intel boxes. If it wasn't for the drm
the old pc versions would undoubtedly still run. It could probably be
reverse engineered ( a lot of work).
I mention this to illustrate the power of old hardware if used
thoughtfully. I encourage you to chase your issues until they are resolved.
On 9/8/2024 10:04 AM, G.W. Haywood via Freedos-user wrote:
Hi there,
If you're not interested in the background, please skip to THE
QUESTION. :)
On Saturday, June 1st, 2024 at 2:51 AM, Roger via Freedos-user wrote:
Would be really interesting to hear, how people continue actively using
DOS today, including their hardware/software environment. ...
See below. I hope it's interesting.
On Mon, 3 June, 2024 at nine seconds before midnight Jim Hall wrote:
... I met with someone last year who uses FreeDOS to drive a
CNC router to make actual products. (CNC = "Computer Numerical
Control" .. that is the fancy term for "a machine controlled by a
computer.) I recall that the CNC was running from a Dell PC, and they
had a serial selector that let the PC control two (or three?)
different CNC routers .. but one at a time.
Maybe I can help the guy. :) More on that later.
But this is more of a quest for information than an offer of help.
About 40 years ago I started writing software to help run my business.
We still use it, as do several customers. I'm still working on it as
the government keeps moving the goal posts - but that's another story.
It's all on bare metal except for the build system (it's compiled in a
DOS emulator) and for some development, both just for convenience.
Initially it only ran on DOS, and for serious use (e.g. sending bills
to customers) it's still only used on DOS although since the early 2ks
it has also run on Linux, mostly for maintenance and training. On DOS
there were several ways of using more than the base 640k of memory but
over the years most of them fell by the wayside; my make files still
theoretically can build several different 'models', but for many years
I've built only DPMI executables using the venerable X32 DOS extender.
The C/C++ compiler and a few libraries are the original Zortech tools
which I actually paid for back in the day. They've been upgraded over
the years and are now provided free by Digital Mars, but I'm terrified
of unexpected issues so I've never upgraded them. There were quite a
few gremlins in the early days, some of them not immediately obvious.
The tools I'm using now are those which have stood the test of time.
As far as the business uses are concerned there's no particular reason
to move from DOS, and there are good reasons not to move (particularly
the need for caution with business data) but I'm considering FreeDOS
for a number of reasons, listed here I guess in ascending priority:
1. Debugging - for example I have some machines which will apparently
run DOS, but not my business software. It isn't easy to debug MS-DOS.
2. Development - it might make some things easier for me. It could be
useful to have a DOS network connection for development but I'll avoid
it like the plague for systems with real business data.
3. Probably the most pressing right now, USB support. Few machines
thesedays are equipped with PS/2 keyboard connectors. Thus far I've
simply relied on older gear. Eventually that won't be an option, so
I'd like now to set up a FreeDOS system which uses a USB keyboard.
THE QUESTION
8<----------------------------------------------------------------------
I've looked at quite a bit of the documentation (and as you see in the
mailing list archives) but I haven't seen it written in so many words.
So here's the main question: Will FreeDOS, out of the box, work on a
machine with a USB keyboard? Several of the threads I've seen here
seem to be telling me that the answer is 'no'. I've seen a couple of
stand-alone USB drivers for DOS mentioned here and there with caveats,
but I haven't seriously looked at them yet.
If there's experience Out There which may smooth my path I'll be very
grateful to hear it. I'm sort of expecting that I'll have to load a
third-party driver early in the boot process. That's OK I suppose.
8<----------------------------------------------------------------------
Getting back to the CNC machines and serial ports...
Some time in the early 1990s my mother suggested that it would save a
lot of time if she could have a workstation instead of having to wait
for my sister's workstation to be free. This was her idea, not mine,
and I feel the need to be clear about that. So I set about making my
single-user business software package into a multi-user package. DOS
was still the operating system, but it now supports multiple users on
serial terminals, up to the limit of the hardware support. It took a
while to get right, and it's a bit weird (for example some things can
only be done safely when other things aren't being done) but with some
cooperative working by the users it's supported several businesses for
several decades. In my own business a 33MHz 386 with ISA multi-serial
cards has supported a dozen concurrent users. I think several hundred
users would probably be no trouble on a machine with a similar sort of
specification if you could just get the hardware. This is based on my
knowledge of the performance of the software and the system components
and I haven't ever even simulated it. Some work in assembly language
would be needed to use PCI serial cards other than in legacy mode, but
I plan to do that whenever I get a minute. I haven't really thought
about USB/serial converters although I so use them on several Linux
boxes. Amongst other things the DOS business software can use a Linux
box as a sort of go-between to transmit data to the government (which
is now required here by law) and to send business documents (invoices,
credit notes, statements) by email instead of printing paper forms.
Maybe these techniques could find application with the CNC machines,
it might be worth mentioning it to the guy if you bump into him again.
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